The Most Beautiful Book in the World
Eight Novellas
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The international bestselling story collection. “Truth and beauty are here brought together with all the visual beauty and power of a major literary work” (Lire Magazine, France).
A cast of extravagant and affecting characters lovingly portrayed by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt animates these eight contemporary fables about people in search of happiness. One of Europe's most popular and bestselling authors, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt captivates the reader with his spirited style and enchanting stories that move effortlessly from the everyday to the fantastical. The eight stories in this collection, his first to be published in English, represent his best and most imaginative storylines: from the touching and surprising love story between Balthazar, a wealthy author, and Odette, a shop clerk, to the tale of a barefooted princess; from the moving title story about a group of female prisoners in a Soviet gulag to the entertaining portrait of a perennially disgruntled perfectionist. Behind each story lies a simple, if elusive, truth: though we may be frequently blind to it, happiness is often right in front of our eyes.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Eight well-developed, engaging stories by French novelist Schmitt (My Life with Mozart) delineate the complex emotional lives of women and their nettlesome men. Two of the tales play into the delicious stereotype of married Frenchmen carrying on parallel lives with longstanding amours. In "The Forgery," a man breaks up with his mistress of 25 years, leaving the now middle-aged secretary living in low-income housing with nothing but his gift of a Picasso that might or might not be real. In "Every Reason to be Happy," a chronically anxious wife follows a suspicious-behaving manicurist and unearths the staggering double life her husband of 17 years has been leading with this other woman. "Odette Toulemonde" is an adoring working-class fan of a washed-up popular novelist who ends up turning to her to authenticate his feelings. The odd tale here is the title story, set in a Russian gulag among a group of women prisoners who, sharing a pencil, struggle to write to their daughters. Schmitt's stories capture a quirky, clever, feminist, very French sensibility.
